Victim
Peter Merholz critiques a Nielsen Alertbox, finding Jakob's praise for a new Microsoft Office feature set premature and possibly self-interested. Of great interest, he observes generally that user-centered design habitually casts the user as victim.
The writings promoting user-centered design theory and practice overwhelmingly cast the user as a victim, subjected to the evils of a system over which they have no control. By studying these victims, the heroic user-centered designer can provide a far superior system that takes into account the actual work practices of the users.